Exam 10? Opposite Day
by static shakedown
Summary: Two-shot. Kobato learns about the Earth holiday "Opposite Day" the hard way from Fujimoto-san. Somewhat of a mild crack fic.


**Exam 10? Opposite Day**

**Disclaimer—**I don't own Kobato.

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After turning the last corner, Kobato abruptly stopped running once she came vis-à-vis the gates of the Yogomi Nursery School. She was certainly winded after a long run, as was evident by her heavy breathing, but she was not altogether exhausted. As she stood in place recuperating her breath Ioryogi-san popped his head out of her bag.

"What do you think you're doing?" he growled, his voice dripping with barely contained anger. "Out of nowhere you took off in this pell-mell dash—without warning!—as if you were some kind of professional sprinter!" He had to pause there, albeit with reluctance, to try to gather himself. The purse turbulence he just experienced had left him as breathless as Kobato after her run and his vision was still a little blurry. He put his head in his paws in an effort to stop his vision from spinning. "And here I am—your loyal companion—carelessly being thrown around in your bag—jostling every which way as you run around half the town like a madwoman!" He could have continued further, and indeed he wanted to very much, but Ioryogi did not have the energy at the moment to finish his tirade. Instead, he slumped against the zipper of Kobato's bag in resignation, all the while willing the stars swirling around his vision to disappear.

Kobato quickly snapped out of her previous reverie. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Ioryogi-san!" she chirped. She reached to grab him out of her bag to make sure he was okay.

He waved her hands away with his plushy paws in a half-hearted fashion. "I'm okay," he mumbled out, giving a sidelong glance at his surroundings. The veins on his head had settled down into their respective place beneath his skin as his anger slightly deflated. "It's just . . . you know how much I hate roller coasters . . . and that was worse," he mumbled out with a pout on his muzzle.

"I know. It must have been terrible! I'm so sorry!" Kobato worried her bottom lip and mentally berated herself for being so careless. "It's just that I didn't want to be late . . ." With a resigned look she glanced up at the open gates across the street once more.

"Not again," she whispered more to herself than to Ioryogi. Her eyes resumed their glazed over look, as if she were peering beyond the gates and school doors to something inside.

After a few more seconds, Ioryogi's dizziness finally subsided. Kobato, in the meant time, had stayed glued to the same spot without moving. Thinking that she was waiting for his permission, he told her that they could continue as long as she walked slowly. _Very _slowly, he emphasized.

"Oh, o-okay," she acquiesced hesistantly. Ioryogi carefully settled back down into the purse and tried to make himself comfortable as they resumed their journey. Kobato tiptoed across the two streets in their way and passed the gates of the school's entrance. She stopped in front of the sliding doors to the kindergarten and began twiddling her feet instead of entering.

Ioryogi poked his head out of her bag, thinking that they had reached their destination. His impatience boiled over when he saw that Kobato, after putting so much effort into getting here fast, was now idling outside. "Are we going to stay here all day or go inside?" he barked out, biting her arm in an effort to draw her attention away from the ground.

If anything, the bite only tickled her arm a little. "Ioryogi-san," she said after a lull of thoughtful silence. The fingers of her other hand absentmindedly moved to pet his head. "Do you by any chance know the time?"

Ioryogi's face darkened and his head slowly expanded with entrapped steam. "Do you think this collar has a watch on it! Huh? Do you?" he roared.

She flinched away from his huge, inflated head in trepidation. "Kyaaa! Of course not, Ioryogi-san! I'm sorry!"

"If you're so sorry then get in there already!"

She hesitantly straightened herself and gave him a salute. "H-hai, Ioryogi-san!"

She marched closer to the door and set her boots to one side. As she reached for the door, Kobato still hesitated slightly as she had before but managed to follow through with her actions before her stuffed animal could yell at her any further. She peeked her head inside once the door was wedged open slightly. To her immense relief, the halls were empty and no one was there yet. But upon taking her first discalced step unto the wooden floor, she realized she was mistaken.

"You're late," came the unmistakably gruff voice of Kiyokazu from somewhere to her left. Kobato turned toward the general direction his voice had sounded from but couldn't spot him anywhere. "Seven minutes and three seconds late, to be exact," he continued. An inside door slid open roughly and Kiyokazu appeared standing on the other side of the threshold with a bamboo broom in his right hand and a sinister-looking glint in his eyes.

"Fujimoto-san!" Kobato yelped, recoiling slightly in surprise. "I can explain! I came by someone who was lost—on my way here—and they needed directions," she stammered out quickly.

"Yeah, right. And it took you seven minutes to explain?" He gave her a skeptical look before starting to sweep the hallway.

"No, it didn't!" Kobato whined. "I didn't know the directions he was asking for . . . so I walked with him until he found a neighborhood he recognized and told me he could continue on his own." Kiyokazu, on his part, seemed to be putting all his attention on sweeping the floor instead of listening to her. His sweeping was slowly inching its way toward where Kobato was standing as she tried to explain. "After—" she paused to move out of the way of the broom as it swept the area right in front of her, "—he left—" she moved again, "—I realized I was lost."

He gave a histrionic sigh and stopped sweeping. "You're in the way," he said simply, tossing the broom to her. Caught off guard, Kobato made to catch the broom but ended up fumbling with it before it fell to the floor. She gave him a small moue before bending to pick it up.

"Helping others might have been a reasonable excuse. Talking to yourself outside, however, is not." He gave her a pointed look that said he heard her outside. "You can sweep while I get the blankets ready for the kids' nap time," he said, exiting to retrieve the blankets that had been aired outside overnight.

She waited for Kiyokazu to slide close the door completely before throwing up the hand not holding the broom in exasperation. "Fujimoto-san is so frustrating!" She wanted to stomp her feet and throw a temper tantrum then and there. With barely contained annoyance she set the broom against the nearest corner and shuffled her feet toward the cupboards for the kindergartners. She gruffly set down her bag on top and took off her overcoat, complaining about Kiyokazu under her breath the whole time.

"Do-ba-to," Ioryogi said in an eerily calm voice as he lifted his head from her bag.

"What now?" she replied in a voice that betrayed her annoyance. She paused in the middle of setting her overcoat on the coat rack to glance at Ioryogi.

"Didn't I tell you to be gentle?" he yelled, jumping out of the bag. He set his paws on either side of his puppy dog waist and gave her a dark look that could instantly wilt flowers.

Kobato was immediately repentant. "Kyyaa! You're right! I'm so s—"

"Sorry," he finished for her. "Just don't let it happen again," he groused, slumping against the wall in preparation to look like a stuffed animal.

She leaned against the coat rack, her face downcast. "Ioryogi-san, I haven't been able to do anything right this whole day." Her bottom lip began to quiver as she stared at the floor and recounted the morning's failures.

Ioryogi felt a pang of guilt for adding to her misery after watching her demeanor sadden. "Nonsense, Kobato. You haven't messed up _everything_." He paused for a moment to devise a way to cheer her up. "What about that stranger you helped find his way? He looked really distraught before you introduced yourself. You probably healed him."

She looked up at him with a doubtful expression. "You really think so?"

"Sure! Just wait 'til we get home. I bet your jar will be fuller because of it."

Kobato beamed at his kind words and with a brighter resolve picked up the broom and got to work. It took her a while to finish sweeping the whole school but she managed to finish right when the first set of children arrived. Kiyokazu entered the hallway along with the kindergartners right as she was putting away the last of the cleaning supplies. The kids marched inside in a neat line with Kiyokazu following behind at the end. Each child gave Kobato a friendly greeting before entering their respective classroom and she in turn gave them an enthusiastic hand wave. Kiyokazu paused outside the door to the class and faced her.

He looked up and down the hallway floor. "The halls look done. Did you clean the rooms as well?" he asked her.

Kobato straightened and nodded her head vigorously. "Hai, Fujimoto-san!"

He turned his head and looked passed the threshold of the door he was standing by to confirm what she said and saw that the room was, in fact, already cleaned. He turned to face her again. "Hnn. I didn't think you'd finish that fast. Good job, Kobato-chan. That was a big help."

Kobato was momentarily stunned by his admitted compliment. She was pretty sure that it was the first one she had ever received by him, and in addition, it sounded genuine. When she saw him resume walking and begin to enter the class without waiting for her to reply, she reached for his arm. He paused in his trek. "Really?" she asked, her eyes wide as she grabbed onto his sleeve.

"Er—'really' what?" he questioned, thrown off guard by the rather abrupt outburst.

"Did I really do a good job?"

He gave her a deadpan look. "Sure," he said slowly, prying off her fingers from his sleeves one by one. "On Opposite Day, maybe," he muttered under his breath as he finished entering the classroom, sliding the door shut in Kobato's face.

"Opposite Day?" she repeated to herself. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion as her gaze lingered on the recently shut door. She turned to face her bag and plushie.

"Ioryogi-san, what's Opposite Day?"

Ioryogi had watched the exchange from the corner of his eyes in silence from his spot on the cupboards. "Oppo-what?" he stuttered out. "Aah—I mean—you don't know what Opposite Day is?" His voice took on an increasingly accusatory tone by the second. "How do plan on fitting in if you don't even know about Opposite Day!"

Kobato was little phased by his outburst because she was still in deep thought trying to recall anything about this peculiar holiday. "I'm pretty sure I've never heard of it . . . " she trailed off. "And I was so sure I knew all of the human holidays, too." She frowned. "Do you think it's related to Children's Day? It is May, after all."

"What!" he roared. In all Ioryogi's anger, his face began to take on purple hues as the blood rushed to his head and tinged his already blue face. Kobato began to back away in fright as his head again began to expand. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" He was practically foaming at the mouth because of her obtuseness.

"Kyaa—!" She backed into the nearest wall and continued retreating until she hit a corner. Cowering in fear, she held up her hands in self-defense against Ioryogi's head. "If you know what it is, why don't you just tell me?" she pleaded.

Almost instantly, Ioryogi calmed down. His manner changed into one of a professor about to give his pupil a life lesson. "It's elementary, my dear Kobato," he said matter-of-factly. "Opposite Day is simply a day when statements mean the opposite of what they usually intend."

She took a moment to digest this new information silently.

"So then . . . when Fujimoto-san told me 'Good job' . . . he really meant 'Bad job'?" she asked. She looked truly crestfallen when the stuffed animal nodded its head in affirmation.

Her expression again became clouded. "And—does your head nod mean yes or no?" she asked, not yet able to grasp the full implications of the meaning of Opposite Day.

"Oh, well—" Ioryogi scrambled for an answer. "It meant 'yes,' of course. I don't—celebrate—Opposite Day . . ." Accepting his own excuse, he consequently nodded to himself and crossed his arms in a defensive stance as if daring Kobato to question his reasoning.

"Oh . . . right," she nodded in agreement, rationalizing that it wouldn't make sense for Ioryogi to celebrate a human tradition.

Kiyokazu interrupted their conversation as he slid open the classroom door. "Are you going to stand out there talking to yourself all day?" he snapped.

Flustered, Kobato looked to her stuffed animal companion for advice on how to reply. However, Ioryogi had quickly resumed his unassuming position of stuffed animal in the mean time and did not meet her desperate glances. She was on her own on this one.

She fiddled with her hands for a moment trying to buy time. "Y-yes?" she piped out after a pregnant pause, hoping her answer was appropriate for the holiday. She peaked up at Kiyokazu to gauge his reaction with big doe eyes before returning her gaze to her hands.

Kiyokazu just stood on his side of the threshold, momentarily dumbfounded. "Yes?" he repeated in an incredulous voice, doubting he heard her correctly.

Kobato looked downright frightened as she gave a very small head nod.

If there was any doubt left in Kiyokazu's mind that there was something off about Kobato, her behavior at this moment cast it all out the metaphorical window. Beyond being annoyed by her antics, he was truly befuddled by them at times. Times like right now.

"Look," he tried to say gently as he stepped onto the hallway and shut the door behind him. "You've . . . er—" he tripped over his own words as he saw Kobato close her eyes. "You've worked hard this morning," he continued, hoping that she was in fact listening to his speech with her eyes closed and was not narcoleptic. "I've got everything covered here so why don't you go home and try to relax?" he offered.

Kobato hesitantly opened one eye to look at him. Kiyokazu nodded his head in what he hoped was an encouraging gesture. She opened her other eye and continued looking at Kiyokazu dispassionately. Kobato gave him a weak nod. He smiled at her and gave her a tentative pat on the shoulder. "That sounds like a great idea. Take care," he said in a kind voice. Hearing a loud crash on the other side of the shoji doors, he gave Kobato one last quizzical look before rushing back in to check on the kids.

As soon as he was out of sight, Kobato threw her hands in the air in exasperation. Gesticulating wildly, first at herself and then at the door, she glared at Ioryogi. "I can't believe how mean Fujimoto-san is being!" she bit out in a harsh whisper. "And all because I was a few minutes late!"

Ioryogi got up on his hind legs and crossed his paws in front of him. He nodded his head. "I agree. Who does he think he is, bossing you around like that? Only I can do that!"

"I know!" she agreed quickly, stomping her foot down. She then paused for a moment to rethink about what Ioryogi just said, and although something seemed off she decided to let it go without saying anything.

"You should just ignore him, Kobato. Or, take him literally! He says to go home? Well, let's go! You're not going to fill you jar any quicker here with this guy," Ioryogi alleged.

Kobato's eyes widened in surprise. She never would have thought to disobey Kiyokazu. "But didn't Fujimoto-san say he needs me?" she questioned innocently.

"If he really needed you he wouldn't have slammed you out of the classroom in the first place," he retorted.

Kobato nibbled on her bottom lip and looked around. She had come here to help Sayaka and didn't want to leave early just because Kiyokazu was being his usual bossy self. But she had also finished cleaning earlier than usual. And it was true that Kiyokazu probably wouldn't allow her to help in the classroom if his previous diatribe was any indication . . .

"Okay," she finally consented and approached Ioryogi to collect him and her things.

Ioryogi's eyes filled with stars and he did a quick victory dance. "Yes! Now I won't have to sit here all day. Hey, Dobato, how 'bout we go to the park on our way back? The park's a great place to find people to heal," he suggested, omitting the part about there being a quaint little stall near the park's entrance selling mouthwatering dango.

"That sounds like a great idea." Kobato smiled. "And stop calling me Dobato," she whined. With one last glance behind at the closed door to the class, she quietly sneaked out of the school with Ioryogi in tote and headed for the park.

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**A/N**—Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed my first Kobato. fanfic! Kyaa~~

Children's Day is an official Japanese holiday celebrated on May 5th.

Oh, and . . . Ioryogi's head doesn't really 'blow up' (literally), per se in the manga, but . . . it does in my fanfic :p I hope that wasn't too weird.


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